When the razor wire comes down
We cannot help everyone, but we can help someone
I am writing this on the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. I suppose I should be more cheerful, with spring coming and President Biden enjoying a major legislative victory. But the world is full of suffering, and voting rights are still under threat. Besides, I’m trying to decide which advertising copywriters deserve more to be buried in an avalanche for their obnoxious insurance commercials, the ones writing for Progressive or for Liberty Mutual. It’s that kind of Sunday.
A British friend in Portugal is a fellow advocate for LGBTQ refugees in Kenya. He copied me on a letter to staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reminding them of a woman who is suffering from multiple issues, one of which is that her child “continues to suffer from health problems in his chest.”
Poor child. I don’t know how the people at UNHCR can sleep. Lately I have been corresponding with a gay Congolese man in a camp in Uganda, where officials demand a $2500 bribe to let him out. I use Google Translate because I am not fluent in French.
I remind myself that the world is great and I am small. I cannot help everyone, but I can help someone.
I cannot afford $2500 bribes, but I can offer comfort and understanding to a lonely refugee.
From tragedy to farce: the former president, still on his quest to be a dictator like his pals in Moscow, Riyadh, and Pyongyang, sent cease-and-desist letters to Republican organizations including the RNC demanding they stop using his name and likeness to raise money. He’s upset that they might fundraise for Republicans who supported his second impeachment.
A conservative actor says he “kind of liked” that the ex-president pissed people off, and that he himself “didn’t join in the lynching crowd.” Apparently urging people to wear a mask and practice social distancing is equivalent to a lynching. Never mind that people have actually been lynched because of the constant incitements by the former president he cheers on.
New Ways Ministry reports that Catholic Bishops in Scotland are upset over a hate crime bill, because including LGBTQ people in those legal protections might crowd the bishops’ hate ministry. New Ways also reports, “Some bishops in Brazil have criticized an ecumenical fundraising campaign over the inclusion of LGBTQ issues in campaign materials.” If God is a loving God, why haven’t those bishops had a Road to Damascus moment and improved their attitudes?
I have a much better opinion of Pope Francis, who traveled to Iraq and met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, where they discussed injustice and oppression. The New York Times reports, “Neither cleric was pictured wearing a mask. While Francis and those traveling with him have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, Ayatollah al-Sistani has not. The ayatollah … does not want to deprive someone else of a vaccine dose and is waiting for others to be vaccinated first. His office has made it clear, however, that Ayatollah al-Sistani believes vaccination is religiously permitted.”
I already like the ayatollah better than anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been blocked from Instagram for spreading misinformation.
As I write, final passage of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act appears assured. The Times reports, “Researchers at Columbia University project the overall package will lift more than 13 million people from poverty this year, including nearly six million children, and estimate that a permanent program of children’s payments would decrease child poverty nearly in half.”
We don’t have the votes to pass everything we want. Let us at least pause to celebrate the good that we do pass.
On Feb. 23, the D.C. Council sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Schumer and House Speaker Pelosi opposing the fence around the US Capitol. I sympathize, but (to cite one example) a truck bomb like the one that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, if set off outside a Senate or House office building, could kill thousands. The response to such an event would make current security measures look mild.
Until hundreds of the January 6 insurrectionists are in prison, we cannot afford to operate on aesthetics nor pretend we occupy an ideal space where reason prevails. The razor wire will eventually come down. If only we were as dedicated to protecting racial, religious, and gender minorities as we are with the Capitol and members of Congress.
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist at rrosendall@me.com. Follow him on twitter: @RickRosendall
Copyright © 2021 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.
